stay right here and fight
'em. But you take this money--there's fifty-two thousand dollars--and go
down and make that payment. If you can't find Blount, then hunt up the
clerk of the Superior Court and deposit the fifty thousand with him.
Just bring me his receipt, with a memorandum of the payment, and he'll
notify Blount himself."

"I don't like to," she shuddered. "I'm afraid they won't take it, and
then you'll----"

"They've got to take it!" he broke in eagerly. "Just get the stage
driver to go along as witness, and I'll give you a full power of
attorney. And then listen, Virginia; you take the rest of this money and
buy back your father's stock."

"Oh, can I?" she cried and, reaching out for the money, she held it with
tremulous hands. There were fifty thousand-dollar bills, golden yellow
on the back and a rich, glossy black on the front; and others of smaller
denominations, making fifty-two thousand in all. It was a fortune in
itself, but in what it was to buy it was well worth over a million.

"Aren't you afraid to trust me?" she asked at last, and when he smiled
she hid it away. "All right," she said, "and as soon as I've paid it
I'll call you up on the 'phone."

She went out the next morning on the early stage and Wiley watched it
rush across the plain. It was green as a lawn, that dry, treeless desert
with its millions of evenly spaced creosote bushes; but as the sun rose
higher it turned blood-red like an omen of evil to come. Many times
before, in the glow of evening, he had seen the green change to red; but
now it was ominous, with Stiff Neck George on the hill-top and Shadow
Mountain frowning down behind. He paced about uneasily as the day wore
on and at night he listened for the 'phone. She was to call him up, as
soon as she had paid over the money; but it did not ring that night.

The morning of the last day dawned fair and pleasant, with the fresh
smell of dew in the air, and he awoke with a sense that all was well.
Virginia was in Vegas and, when Blount came to his office, she would
make the payment in his stead. There was no chance to fail, once she had
found her man; and if Blount refused to accept it, which he could hardly
do, she could simply leave the money with the court. There were no
papers to confuse her, no forms to go through; Blount had made a legal
contract to sell the property and she had a full power of attorney. All
it called for was loyalty and faithfulness to her trust, and Wiley